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10 Reasons Baby’s Not Sleeping (and How to Cope)

Even the best snoozers sometimes have issues getting a peaceful night’s sleep. Here's how to handle common sleep problems in babies.

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Sleep: No one in your home is likely getting much of it, especially during the first few months. And even once your baby is sleeping through the night, she can develop sleep problems. That’s why knowing the most common reasons babies don’t sleep can help. If you can recognize the issue and have tools to cope, you can defuse potentially tough situations more easily so that, with any luck, everyone gets a better night’s rest. Read on for a few of the most common reasons your baby might not be sleeping at each stage during the first year and then get solutions to help your restless little one rest.

Sleep Problems: 0 to 1 Months Old

At the newborn stage, babies are still adjusting to a regular sleeping pattern. Newborns generally sleep about 16 hours a day, waking up frequently for feedings both day and night. A 1-month-old should get about 14 to 18 hours of sleep a day in more regular patterns (eight to nine hours at night and another seven to nine hours over the course of several naps). There is still a lot for her (and maybe you!) to learn about how to get enough rest. Here are a couple of challenges you can take steps to solve:

Resisting Sleeping on Her Back

What it looks like: Your baby fusses or won’t settle when laid on her back to sleep. Babies actually feel more secure sleeping on their tummies, but it’s linked to a much higher incidence of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). So experts recommend always laying your baby on her back to sleep.

How to solve it: If your baby just won’t settle down on her back, talk to your pediatrician, who may want to check for any possible physical explanations. But much more likely, your baby just doesn’t feel as secure on her back. If that’s the case, there are a few tricks you can try to encourage back-sleeping, including swaddling your baby and rocking her to sleep. Just skip the sleep positioner, and stick with a consistent routine. Eventually, your baby will get used to sleeping on her back.

If your baby suffers from severe gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), which affects 1 in 20 babies, your pediatrician might recommend stomach sleeping if and only if the benefits for GERD outweigh the risk of SIDS. Talk to your doctor to find out if your child falls into this category, and never put baby to sleep on his or her stomach without getting confirmation from your doctor that it’s okay.

Mixing Up Day and Night

What it looks like: Your baby sleeps all day, but then stays up all night long (not such a party for you!). When your baby was in your womb, your activity during the day rocked her to sleep, leaving her awake all night as you were trying to rest.

Sleep Problems: 2 to 3 Months Old

Your baby should sleep and wake in normal patterns now, with a few naps during the day and then a longer period of sleep at night, interrupted by the occasional feeding. A 2-month-old should get a total of 14 to 16 hours a day (eight to 10 at night and four to eight over a few naps), while a 3-month-old should get about nine to 10 hours at night and a few naps a day of one and a half to two hours each.

Sleep Regression

What it looks like: At 3 months old, your formerly sleepy baby may be ready for anything but bedtime — even though you're ready to drop. Welcome to sleep regression — a perfectly normal blip on the sleep radar that many babies experience at this time, then often again at 8 to 10 and 12 months (though it can happen at any time). Why? With all this fascinating new stuff to play with and see and people to encounter, it seems life is just too much fun these days to waste time sleeping.

How to solve it: Stick with (or start) your baby bedtime routine — the bath, the story and the cuddles. Also be sure your baby is getting enough sleep during the day to make up for lost sleep at night (it’s even harder for an overtired baby to settle down at night). Keep in mind, too, that sleep regression is temporary. Once your baby acclimates to her new developmental abilities, sleeping patterns should return to baseline.

Frequent Late Night Feedings

What it looks like: Most 2- to 3-month-old babies, particularly breastfed ones, still need to fill their tummies once or twice during the night. Three or four middle-of-the-night chow-downs, on the other hand, are typically too much of a good thing by this point — and for most babies, not necessary.

What to do about it: You can work on gradually reducing the number of late-night feedings your baby gets by increasing the size of bedtime feedings, making sure baby's getting enough to eat all day long, and slowly stretching the time between night-time feedings.

Teething Pain

What it looks like: If your baby is showing signs of teething during the day — such as drooling, biting, feeding fussiness and irritability — teething pain may also be waking her up at night. Keep in mind that teething-related sleep issues can begin almost any time during the first year: Some babies grow their first tooth as early as 2 to 3 months, while others are toothless until their first birthday.

How to solve it: While you shouldn’t ignore your baby, try to avoid picking her up. Instead, offer a teething ring, some gentle words and pats, or maybe a lullaby. She might settle down on her own (though you might have to leave the room for that to happen). If tender gums seem to pain her night after night, ask your pediatrician about offering some baby acetaminophen at bedtime.

Sleep Problems: 4 to 5 Months Old

By 4 months, your baby should be sleeping about 15 hours a day, broken up into two or three daytime naps totaling three to four hours, and then another 10 to 11 hours at night. As your baby gets closer to 6 months old, she should be sleeping nine to 11 hours at night with two longer naps during the day, usually one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Changing Naps and Sleep Patterns

What it looks like: As babies get older, they nap less. If your baby seems happy with her changing schedule and sleeps well at night, embrace this milestone and carry on. But if your little one is napping less but fussing more, or having trouble going to bed at night, she may be overtired and in need of some nap-time encouragement.

How to solve it: Try an abbreviated bedtime routine before each nap (some quiet music, a massage, or some storytelling) and be patient — it may simply take her longer to settle into a routine, but she’ll get there.

Sleep Problems: 6 months and up

Not Falling Asleep on Her Own

What it looks like: Almost everyone, adults and babies alike, wakes up a couple times during the night. A lifetime of good sleep habits depends on learning how to fall back asleep alone — and that’s a skill babies need to learn. If your little one is still waking you up for midnight feedings and snuggles at 6 months old, you may want to consider sleep training.

How to solve it: If you’re open to sleep training (not everyone is, and that’s okay, too), be prepared that it’s going to be as hard — if not harder — on you than it is on your baby. How you tackle sleep training, also called cry it out or CIO, is up to you. Keep in mind the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends sleeping in the same room as your baby (but not in the same bed) for at least six months, ideally a year. But even if you encounter this problem when you’re still room-sharing, the basic idea behind sleep training remains the same.

At the end of your bedtime routine, say goodnight and mean it — even when you hear protests and tears as you exit the room. It’s okay to go back and assure your little one that everything’s okay, but have a plan in place as to how often you’ll walk back into her room (and how long you’ll stay there). Don’t have a plan yet? There are many sleep training strategies, so decide what you think might work best for you and give it a fair shot.

Frequent Late Night Feedings

What it looks like: By the time your baby is 6 months old, she doesn’t need mid-night feedings anymore. So if she’s not sleeping without nursing and rocking first, or she still gets up multiple times throughout the night and won’t go back to sleep without the same send-off, she’s wise to the fact that crying often results in being picked up, rocked and fed — pretty good motivation to keep right on wailing. Many babies have to learn how to soothe themselves back to sleep.

What to do about it: If you’re comfortable trying sleep training, it can be a good option for babies who wake up frequently to feed throughout the night.

Waking Early

What it looks like: Your baby is waking up— and staying awake— at the crack of dawn.

Sleep Problems at Any Age

Disruptions in Sleep Routines

What it looks like: It doesn't take much to turn a baby's sleep routine on its head. A cold or an ear infection can wreak havoc on sleeping patterns, as can emotional challenges such as Mom returning to work or getting used to a new babysitter. Traveling is another surefire sleep-schedule killer, and major milestones — like mastering crawling or learning to walk — can also temporarily interfere with sleep.

How to solve it: Although babies with changing sleeping routines can be a little fussier, during these times, you've got to cut your baby some slack in the snoozing department (and ease up on enforcing routines). Do what you can to comfort your little one through these little disruptions to her schedule. Then try to get back into your regular groove as soon as you can — following the same comforting pre-bed routine in the same order as usual (a bath, then feeding, then a story and so on).